2 On Death Row Grasp At Killer`s Line

December 13, 1985|By John O`Brien and George Papajohn. John Schmeltzer contributed to this article.

Convicted killer Brian Dugan has furnished state investigators with a statement purporting that he alone abducted and killed 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico in a 1983 burglary of the girl`s Naperville home, sources said Thursday.

Authorities have been laboring for the last month to confirm whether the statement is true, because it could exonerate two men sentenced to death for the girl`s death.

Dugan, 29, of Aurora, is serving two life terms for the sex slayings of Melissa Ackerman and Donna Schnorr. He made the admissions in the Nicarico case to Illinois State Police criminal investigators in late November, lawyers and investigators said.

Two men were convicted in January and sentenced to death in the Nicarico case after a six-week jury trial. A third defendant is to be retried next month on the kidnaping, rape and murder charges.

Attorneys for the three men called the Dugan statement a breakthrough for their clients. One said she will file a motion in Du Page County Circuit Court for access to any statement made by Dugan, a convicted burglar and sex offender.

``I hope it will show my client is innocent,`` said Carol Anfinson, a public defender representing Stephen Buckley, 22. The Nicarico jury was unable to reach a verdict on Buckley, and a mistrial was declared.

Buckley`s co-defendants, Rolando Cruz, 25, of Wheaton, and Alex Hernandez, 22, of Aurora, are on Death Row in Menard Correctional Center. Their convictions are being appealed.

Frank Wesolowski, the former Du Page County public defender who represented Hernandez, said the state must come forward and report whether it has new evidence.

Du Page County State`s Atty. James Ryan said the results of a new Nicarico inquiry may not be known for 30 days. Ryan declined comment other than to confirm that Dugan had made statements last month in connection with the Nicarico slaying. Ryan asked state agents to investigate.

Sources said the agents are trying to ``prove or disprove`` what Dugan has told them. They are evaluating his statements in light of physical evidence and other details, including facts or circumstances in the case, the sources said.

It was not determined whether authorities requested that Dugan take a lie-detector test, a standard move to preliminarily establish credibility.

But an official who asked not to be identified said Dugan ``has been cooperating up to this point.``

Sources said Dugan also implicated himself in several unsolved burglaries. But as with the Nicarico statement, authorities have declined comment.

Dugan, whose criminal record in Du Page and Kane Counties dates to 1974, was convicted three times for burglary and was last paroled from a seven-year prison term in August, 1982.

Du Page County and the Naperville subdivision where the Nicarico family lives were stunned when Jeanine, home alone from school because of the flu, was abducted and killed by home invaders on Feb. 25, 1983.

In plea bargaining negotiations in the Ackerman and Schnorr cases last month, a Dugan attorney told prosecutors in LaSalle County that his client had information about the Nicarico case.

Dugan sought to avoid the death penalty and pleaded guilty in return for two life terms for the June 2 abduction, rape and murder of Melissa Ackerman, 7, of Somonauk, whose body was found in LaSalle County, and the June 15, 1984, rape and murder of Schnorr, 27, a nurse from Geneva in Kane County.

Dugan also received sentences totaling 150 years in prison for sexual attacks on three other women in the far western suburbs.

Dugan is represented by Thomas McCullough, a Geneva lawyer who also is a part-time Kane County assistant public defender.

In a telephone interview, McCullough refused to discuss the investigation or the Dugan statement. He would say only that Dugan ``is doing well`` in prison and that he has received ``safeguards`` there.

McCullough`s first contact with Dugan was 10 years ago, when he prosecuted him for theft while serving as an assistant state`s attorney in Kane County.

Former Du Page County State`s Atty. J. Michael Fitzsimmons, whose office obtained the indictments that led to the convictions of Hernandez and Cruz, said Thursday he remains confident that the action was correct. The indictments were returned nearly a year after the crime and Fitzsimmons left office in November, 1984, having been defeated by Ryan in a primary.

Fitzsimmons noted that confessions by people in jail are usually viewed with suspicion. He credited his former assistant, Thomas Knight, ``as the main force behind the prosecution`` of Hernandez, Cruz and Buckley.

``Tom did the investigation from scratch and brought the case to trial,`` Fitzsimmons said. ``There was precious little police work by the sheriff.``

Knight, a federal prosecutor with the organized crime strike force in Chicago, was kept on by the Du Page County Board to handle the Nicarico case after Ryan had swept the other assistants from the office.

Knight said Thursday that he and investigators always thought there may have been as many as four or five offenders in the Nicarico case but that only the identities of Cruz, Hernandez and Buckley were considered firm. He didn`t recall Dugan`s name as part of the investigation.

While all four men attended Aurora East High School at different times and had criminal records in Kane County, sources said they don`t believe the men knew each other.